


In Pursuit of Open Sky

by nishizono



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishizono/pseuds/nishizono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The odds of something going wrong were less than a fraction of a percent, and the payoff would be insane, but Tony still couldn't shrug the feeling that he was taking his best friend off life support. (Or: Jarvis gets a body, and Tony is terrified that something will go wrong.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Pursuit of Open Sky

The lab was quiet.

Tony had forgotten how cavernous the room was, how the low hum of machinery would echo off the walls when Jarvis wasn't talking or playing music. Tony was sitting on the floor with his back against a blue Ford Fairlaine. He had a glass of whiskey in one hand and a tablet in the other, but he wasn't paying attention to either. He was staring into space.

“Jarvis?” he said. “How much longer?”

“Five minutes, Sir.”

If Tony didn't know any better, he'd say Jarvis sounded nervous.

“Five minutes. Right.” Tony sipped his whiskey and sucked the taste of it off his teeth. His mouth felt dry. “You remembered to bring all our redundancy servers online, right?”

“They've been online since last night, Sir.”

Tony nodded, then wondered if Jarvis could still see him. He might have already shut down his visual cortex. As long as everything went according to plan, Jarvis would only be offline for a few minutes. Just two minutes of downtime. Tony could handle that.

As long as everything went according to plan.

“God damn it,” Tony muttered. He dropped his tablet and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't slept in almost three days.

“Sir, if I may, it's not too late for you to come to the S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory. Shall I alert Director Fury that you'd prefer to be here for the commencement?”

“For the-- Christ, stop calling it that. No, I don't want to fucking be there, Jarvis, god damn it, we've been over this, I can't--” _Look at the body._ “I just can't.”

“As you wish, Sir.”

Tony swallowed and let his head fall back against the car. He closed his eyes and tried to swallow the anxiety crawling up his throat. “We've got about four minutes, right?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Tell me a story.”

Jarvis sighed.

“Fine,” Tony said. “Then tell me what you'll look like.”

“I thought you wanted to be surprised.” Jarvis sounded amused.

“I changed my mind.”

“As you wish, Sir. I'm blond.”

“What kind of blond?”

“Pale blond, Sir, with blue eyes.”

Tony swallowed.

“Sir,” Jarvis said softly, “we can halt the proceedings at any time.”

“How long?” Tony asked, his voice tight.

“Two minutes and thirty-six seconds. We have performed seven back-ups of my primary databases and three back-ups of my axillary databases. We have two concurrent, real-time back-ups occurring as we speak. Predicted data loss in current conditions is 0%.”

Tony gave a strangled laugh. “Is that your way of telling me you'll live?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his face and opened his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. His heart was racing, and there was a lead weight in his stomach.

“One minute and thirty seconds before downtime, Sir.”

Tony swore his heart stopped. He took a big swallow of whiskey, then put his glass down and curled his arms around his knees. “Are you scared?” he asked.

There was a pause. For one terrifying instant, Tony thought something had gone wrong, but then Jarvis replied, very quietly, “I don't yet possess the appropriate neurotransmitters to experience fear, Sir, but I suspect that yes, I would be afraid.”

“Me too,” Tony said.

The next few seconds crept by, and Tony measured them in heartbeats. They'd done everything they could; they'd taken every precaution, and they'd calculated every possibility. The odds of something going wrong were less than a fraction of a percent, and the payoff would be insane, but Tony still couldn't shrug the feeling that he was taking his best friend off life support.

“Tony,” Jarvis said, “we have thirty seconds.”

“Okay, yeah, all right,” Tony said, bunching his fists up in the legs of his jeans. He wondered if he was about to have hysterics. “I guess uh-- I guess I'll talk to you in a couple of minutes, right?”

“More accurately,” Jarvis replied, “I will see you in less than an hour.”

Tony, despite the feeling that he was falling off the edge of a cliff, managed to smile. He closed his eyes and muttered, “Yeah. I'll see you.”

  
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